any wine drinkers? i got a bottle of "cockburns" port yesterday. fucking sweet (in both the literal and slang "tenses"...). reminds me of candies that my grandmother used to have? cherry. but a dark sweet cherry. watermelon liquorice (if there's such a thing). thicker and slower legs than i'm used to as an amateur. a full body keeps a slight burn on my gums but implans a curious flavor that i'm exploring. full bodied on the palette but soft down the throat. not for the summer but it lends to a nice fall and/or winter warmth (find your favorite jacket or friend). i don't regret $20 (13.83 for you british folk) for the bottle. it's a warm glass on a cool night and deep enough to keep a tongue enthused.

Took my son to Portugal for his high school graduation present. We met up with friends in Lisbon and went to that very fancy Port Institute for a tasting. It was very entertaining watching a couple of teenage boys trying to order Cockburns with straight faces.

"Artists don't get down to work until the pain of working is exceeded by the pain of not working." - Stephen DeStaebler

it's hard trying to recommend it at my bar. none of the servers know much about the drink aspect of the restaurant (i'm the bartender) so i have to repeat myself a couple of times to the younger staff who aren't sure if i'm saying what i'm saying :p

speaking of port i bought myself a bottle of scotch that was aged an extra couple of years after maturation in casks used to age port. glenmorangie quinta ruban. still trying to find a good scotch to water ratio (agua for you english folks). one of the first things i noticed was that the flavor of the port isn't too subtle which i think might throw some scotch traditionalists off, but i appreciate the carry over because of my fondness for the wine. there are also some heavy chocolate notes. pretty nice combo if you ask me. also by glenmorangie are the original (10 year single malt), lasanta (extra matured in sherry casks), nectar d'or (extra matured in sauternes casks), 18 year old rare, and 25 year old extra rare. the previous list also serves as a wish list. take note medusans. take note.

also bought this last trip is a bottle of 10cane rum. this shit ROCKS. it's made of pure cane sugar as opposed to molasses and that makes a big difference to me. it tastes sweeter and it seems a lot smoother going down. smoother than bacardi going down. less burn. i'm not sure if that's the sugar vs molasses thing but it works. i discovered the rum at work so i'll be experimenting with mixers this weekend!

phro37 wrote:speaking of port i bought myself a bottle of scotch that was aged an extra couple of years after maturation in casks used to age port. glenmorangie quinta ruban. still trying to find a good scotch to water ratio ...

phro37 wrote:speaking of port i bought myself a bottle of scotch that was aged an extra couple of years after maturation in casks used to age port. glenmorangie quinta ruban. still trying to find a good scotch to water ratio ...

In that case I think that would be 100% scotch, 0% water.

not straight for me. scotch is still too potent for me to enjoy neat. plus i'm told adding water really brings out more of the flavors. and hey, i'm already helping the hangover!

firehazard wrote:In that case I think that would be 100% scotch, 0% water.

not straight for me. scotch is still too potent for me to enjoy neat. ...

I'm sure my liver would be in complete agreement with that, actually.But some of those "special" bottles seem just too perfect to be watered down. Like the simply fantastic bottle that someone kindly presented me with recently from a little distillery somewhere on the Isle of Mull... Can't remember the name of it at this moment. Next time I go in the kitchen I'll look. But it's a wondrous thing.

firehazard wrote:In that case I think that would be 100% scotch, 0% water.

not straight for me. scotch is still too potent for me to enjoy neat. ...

I'm sure my liver would be in complete agreement with that, actually.But some of those "special" bottles seem just too perfect to be watered down. Like the simply fantastic bottle that someone kindly presented me with recently from a little distillery somewhere on the Isle of Mull... Can't remember the name of it at this moment. Next time I go in the kitchen I'll look. But it's a wondrous thing.

i'm getting more and more used to neat scotch. i'm finding that adding water brings out some negative things in many of the brands i try. it really seems to bring out the alcohol flavor. reminds me of a gas station.

today i've got the macallan select oak. it's part of a limited release series you'll only find in airports and duty free shops. i live on the border of mexico so i'm able to drive about 20 minutes, buy a bottle for CHEAP, cross the border and return all in about an hours time. saved me at least $40 this trip.

anyways, this bad boy's got some serious flavor. caramel on the nose. cocoa/coffee/chocolate. i didn't notice anything specific on my first glass but it is smooth. the flavor stays around for a while and doesn't totally burn the gums. nice and warm down the throat (that's what SHE said...about the macallan select oak). my second glass has hit me with some SERIOUS coffee notes. raosted malt. hints of charred wood maybe. vanilla. dark cherry? no tobacco though. lite spice. cocoa comes back up the throat after. really nice. really happy with this one. i can't wait to see what i find in it in my next glass!

A few years ago, I was in San Francisco and went on a literary tour that ended up being what we later called a Rent-A-Writer tour. We met up at City Lights with the promise of a drink at the end of the tour, which sounded pretty good. Well, it was fine, but it was more along the lines of, "Here is where Ginsberg wrote Howl, and here is a bar he used to drink at where you can buy me a drink." It was fun, and at a Chinatown bar, he introduced us to a potent drink called Ng-Ka-Py, which he said a lot of the Beats drank. He described it as a kind of rice whiskey, and said that we should shoot it. Does that term translate over? If not, I'm not talking about involving needles in the process.It felt like sake going down with the whiskey burn, and it was especially pleasant. We had a few of these, and we were all pretty buzzed upon leaving and moving on to the next destination. By the time we got to the next destination a couple of blocks away, we had all sobered up again. It seemed like the equivalent of Chinese food - get full quickly and hungry again soon after. So after the final drinks were consumed and we paid him for the walk and the company and he tried to get us interested in some of his wife's paintings, we went back to Chinatown and tried to hunt some down for consuming later on. What we found had this packaging:

It took us a while to find the name of the drink on box, which we took to calling Distilled Chicken after a while because of the "serving suggestion" of the headless chicken on the box.

After getting home, we looked it up, and found Steinbeck the only to mention this in East Of Eden, which was described as tasting like "good rotton apples." It used to have wormwood in it, but due to bans in the States I guess this form was the only one to exist. The funny thing is that the first couple bottles of the stuff I've obtained were amber in hue, and tasted like I remember in the bar in Chinatown. The last bottle with the same packaging and name and everything had a reddish hue, and tastes much nastier. So now it has reached that place of when having a party asking around if there is anyone who has not tried Distilled Chicken yet. There are always brave souls willing to try it.

For my 30th I was bought a bottle of Edradour, http://www.masterofmalt.com/whisky-gift-ideas/, I was always a single malt JD man, couldn't tear myself form it but this bottle is really something else, I recommend it for anyone lookng to try something new.